Summer time busyness!(pictures)

Our first picking of green beans

Once again time has gotten away from me. Our summer has been filled with gardening, bees and general homesteading activities. So much has went on I just dont know where to begin...

Jalapeno peppers and a few cucumbers

The garden has been prolific this year inspite of our triple digit heat somedays and our lack of rain in the month of June. God has certainly blessed us. I have frozen yellow squash, zuchinni and a various sundry of peppers this season. I have canned whole tomatoes, salsa, tomato soup and rotel. I have canned Jalepeno peppers as well. The greenbeans did amazing with a final count of 31 pints and 21 quarts in the pantry! Tomato products are not far behind! The garden is finally slowing down for the season. I wont be putting in a fall garden, I think we are just to tired after the amazing summer garden we have had! We are ready to rest.

First picking of produce beginning of season

Most of the chicks I hatched in early spring are doing awesome...had an illness of some kind go through the chicken yard for a few weeks and we lost some, but most surived whatever it was...The turkeys I hatched are doing great and getting really big!

Farm man transferring from Nuc to Hive

We got our bees in June. We are using a Langstroth hive. We did our homework and settled on this type due to the ease of care and the availablity of information. We bought a nuc as we feel it is far better than ordering bees. A nuc is an established colony which is why we believe you have far less problems and loss of hives. However we also know anything can happen and go wrong in any hive at any time. Our hive is doing amazing. We have been blest with a great mentor who has helped us immensly with learning the in's and out's of beekeeping. He has raised bees for many years and has a bee farm so he is pretty versed in bee keeping and has graciously volunteered his time and information with us. We have been invited to his place to walk through his set up and learn all we can learn first hand....Hopefully we can do that this extn weekend.

First pints of greenbeans

Our pigs are expecting again, I am curious how many little piglet we will get this time. Last litter we had 10 in one litter and 11 in the other...the one sow layed on one of her piglets.....But each sow sucessfully raised 10 little ones. We were impressed. We kept back a female breeding next spring. We are still madly in love with the G.O.S breed...their temperament is amazing and they are not escape artist, they are content in their respective pens. We are blest!

Various produce from one days picking.

In my last post I mentioned dieting....I am proud to report since that time I have lost more weight....I am down 30 lbs and Farm man is down almost 40! We have completey changed our way of eating and are thrilled with the results as well are our doctors! We are low carb, sugar free(mostly) and gluten free. We found out that Farm Girl is gluten intolerant. She was tested by her doctor and it came back positive for gluten intolerant, so our way of eating has changed drastically...We eat much cleaner now that we once did and the results are astonishing. Our health is better than it has been in 20 years. I cant sing the praises loud of enough for "eat what God gave ya, not what man made ya".

Stay Calm and Homestead On!
The Homestead Lady